(#34, Top 100 of 2014) This offers great balance between the freshest fruit and toasty maturity. That poise gives this impressive Champagne a tension, a high wire act that works superbly. It is rich, full of fruit but...

Clearly a contender for wine of the vintage. In a year of masculine styled wine, this is soft, refined and elegant. The ripe tannins are buried under a wealth of ripe fruit, stone, floral and earthy charms. Not close to...

Subdued on opening, but with 30 minutes in a carafe it spills out rich pencil lead and liquorice notes, with blackberry fruits and smoky vanilla spice. Classic Margaux 2006, with fairly high acidity that emphasises a...

Subdued on opening, but with 30 minutes in a carafe it spills out rich pencil lead and liquorice notes, with blackberry fruits and smoky vanilla spice. Classic Margaux 2006, with fairly high acidity that emphasises a...

Subdued on opening, but with 30 minutes in a carafe it spills out rich pencil lead and liquorice notes, with blackberry fruits and smoky vanilla spice. Classic Margaux 2006, with fairly high acidity that emphasises a...

Subdued on opening, but with 30 minutes in a carafe it spills out rich pencil lead and liquorice notes, with blackberry fruits and smoky vanilla spice. Classic Margaux 2006, with fairly high acidity that emphasises a...

Flowers, fresh churned earth, cherry pipe tobacco, cocoa and cigar box aromas are making their presence known. Still young, the wine is fresh, supple and tannic. While the wine demands time and the tannins are clearly...

Dense and rich Latour with layered and velvety tannins and gorgeous fruit. At the same time, there’s lots of wood. Coffee flavor, too. Full-bodied, layered and structured. Needs more time to soften the tannins. Try in 2021.

More knitted down than the 2005, in the 2002, 2004 vein, with firm tannins, even if they are now melted and integrated, and a sense of control. Dark berry fruits with smoked earth, undergrowth, soot, powerful but subdued...

Tightly knit, as you would expect at only 9 years age, this blend of 82% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, and 2% Petit Verdot starts off with an earthy, forest floor, cedar chest, smoke, tobacco and cedar wood nose. Full...

The 2006 Léoville Las Cases is muscular and uncompromising, unwinding to reveal aromas of dark berries, cassis, burning embers, espresso roast, exotic spices, loamy soil and toasty oak. Full-bodied, rich and extracted...

Great quality, classic but a little less generous at this point in its life than the 2005 that precedes it. Liqourice root, raspberry leaf, smoked earth, cassis, bilberry, all those tight smooth-skinned high-acidity...

Fantastic from the start. A colossal power of beautiful rumbling Pinot maturity. It’s like chewing on the ripest grapes from Aÿ and Verzenay. At the same time ultra stylish: unmistakable Cristal essence of peach and mango...

A rather solar expression suffuses the complex nose mingling notes of prunes, spices, and forest floor. This is not the most structured wine of this tasting but it remains a textbook Pichon Baron, as it has the telltale...

Tight and unyielding at the moment, but with great pedigree, great texture and definition, this has lots of life to come. Poised and impactful, with juicy and mouthwatering fruit. Punches far above the weight of the...

Tasted almost two years after disgorgement, the 2006 Comtes de Champagne Blanc de Blancs shows a beautiful golden-citrus color and opens with a fascinating intense, floral, slightly reductive nose that develops enormously...

Broad-shouldered, well constructed, powerful concentrtation of blackberry pastilles and liqourice root. There is a purity to the fruit expression on the attack, followed quickly by a mid palate shot of melted bitter black...

Broad-shouldered, well constructed, powerful concentrtation of blackberry pastilles and liqourice root. There is a purity to the fruit expression on the attack, followed quickly by a mid palate shot of melted bitter black...